Being the reviews and ramblings of an incurable narcissist with too much time on his hands.

Sunday, June 2, 2013

Directors Retrospective: Michael Bay Part 1

Michael Bay is a…divisive artist, to say the least. This is
merely my experience, but I can’t think of any other artist who so is so
consistently financially successful and so consistently critically despised.
Despite the critical hatred for his output, he is not only one of the most
successful, but one of the most influential, modern directors. The way modern
blockbusters are shot and edited, and especially the way they sound, have
unquestionably been influenced by Bay. And not for the better.

Me, I despise him, but unlike his contemporaries in the so
called ‘hack pack’ of directors that do exclusively terrible movie (which
includes Brett Ratner and Tim Story) he has a distinctive and recognizable
style. He’s a nearly unwatchably terrible director, but he’s endlessly
fascinating. So naturally, I was interested enough to decide to do a director’s
retrospective.

It was a decision I would come to regret.

Music Videos:

I don’t usually address a director’s pre-film work, and I’m
gonna keep this short, but this is one of the first directors I’ve ever done a
retrospective on who had an interesting pre-film career. Plus, he’s did videos
for a couple of songs that everyone still knows, namely I’d Do Anything For
Love (But I Won’t Do That)by
Meatloaf and I Touch Myself by the Divinyls. And a couple songs for people like
Vanilla Ice and Tina Turner, but I don’t care.

I’d be lying if I said I don’t love I’d Do Anything For
Love. Its kind of a ridiculous and over the top song, and for once Bay’s
sensibilities fit the song. The video is kind of insane, and it features a lot
of his ticks (Helicopters at sunset notably and fast edits) but it fits with
the tone of the song and it all works. Plus it’s got more likeable characters
than most of his movies. He eventually did a sequel to the video, which is much
more typical Michael Bay stuff and nowhere near as much fun.

As for I Touch Myself…meh? I dunno, I was never overly fond
of this song and the video isn’t doing much to support it. It doesn’t even
feature many of Michael Bay’s signature style, aside from cuts that last maybe
2 seconds and a camera that will not stop moving. And not that I’m expecting
otherwise, but this might be the least explicit video possible for a song
that’s about masturbation. Hell, I think I’d Do Anything For Love is more
explicit, just for that random lesbian sex scene at the midpoint.

Anyway, Michael Bay was doing exceptionally well as a music
video director, so actual films were naturally right around the corner.

Bad Boys

Annnnnnd we’re in the shit right out of the gate. Now don’t
get me wrong, this isn’t a terrible action movie, and both Bay and lead Will
Smith (to say nothing of Martin Lawrence) would end up doing much worse movies.
But, that said, no amount justification can make this anything other than a bad
film.

The plot is pretty boiler plate buddy-cop bullshit.,
something about missing drugs from a bust and internal affairs…maybe there was
a time limit? I dunno, I wasn’t paying very close attention. But that doesn’t
really matter, it’s all about the action. And the action is…actually pretty
solid. It’s pretty typical Bay stuff, but it’s not too bad for it and it’s free
of a lot of the more irritating aspects of Bay’s direction. Plus, as much as I
despise Martin Lawrence, he and Will Smith have an easy going chemistry, that
would serve them a lot better in the sequel. So why don’t I like it?

Well, I actually accidentally touched on it above; I don’t
care. It’s all just so clichéd, predictable and ultimately boring that I just
check out, and no amount of visual flair can drag me back in. For example,
would you believe that one of the two leads is a bachelor and the other is a
family man? You would? How about the fact that there is a hooker with a good
heart? You’re not surprised? Well there you go. It’s not that a clichéd plot
can’t work, it’s that there had to be more to it and this movie never graduates
to that level. As a result, I’m not invested and the movie is boring.

But, no one listens to me or the critics, and despite
middling critical reaction, Bad Boys
was a MASSIVE hit, launching Will Smith’s career as an action star and Bay’s
career as an action director.

The Rock

Okay, I’m not even gonna lie. I really like this movie. It’s
a big dumb action movie, but I have been known to like those (I really liked Machete and I continue to own a copy of Air Force One on DVD) and this one kind
of works. Maybe it’s the fact that I like Nicholas Cage (for reasons I’m not
totally sure of, but I do like him). Maybe it’s Sean Connery, who is just plain
awesome in this movie. Maybe it’s the fact that the action is well put together
or maybe it’s the fact that the script doesn’t suck. I dunno I just like it.

What was odd, at the time, is the casting of Nicholas Cage.
Jerry Bruckheimer seemed to think that Nicholas Cage, at the time best known for
independent critical darling films, like Raising
Arizona and Leaving Las Vegas,
would be good in an action movie. And it worked, signaling a new (though
perhaps not entirely positive) trajectory for his career. However in this, and
in the equally awesome Con Air, it
proved to be a good choice as even when he’s terrible he brings a unique energy
to a production.

Aside from that, there’s not much to say. It’s as well
directed and written as any Michael Bay film has ever been. Sean Connery is
still legendarily cool (and this was basically his second to last good film
role before Finding Forrester; his
next film was The Avengers…the one
where he’s in a bear suit…the one that’s complete shit. Which is odd, cause the
show it’s based on is actually kind of awesome). It’s probably Michael Bay’s
best overall film, and easily the one I like the most.

And I’m not alone; The
Rock still has the best overall critical reception of any of Bay’s movies.
It was also a big hit, cementing Bay as an A-List director and hit maker. So
naturally, he and Bruckheimer were going to team up to make a movie again.

Armageddon:

I hate this movie. I really, really, really, reallllllllly
do. I know I’m not alone in that opinion (far from it) but unlike some of Bays
other hits, I really cannot figure out why this movie was a hit, or why anyone
would want to see this. Aside from all of the other issues, it’s just plain
fucking boring.

And no, I don’t mean it’s boring in the ‘well the characters
don’t engage me so I don’t care’ way. I mean, it’s that too, but there’s more
to it than that. See, unlike most of Bay’s films, which are so eager to get to
the action that you can practically hear the movie salivating through the
opening credits, Armageddon takes
it’s sweet damn time about getting things going; It is over an hour into the
movie before we get into space and once we get there it’s just painfully
obvious how much of it is operating under Murphy’s Law.

This is one of those rare movies where not a single aspect
of it works. I mean, the script is bad to the point of being physically
painful, but that’s to be expected from a Bay film (and it was written, in
part, by JJ Abrams…yeah, defend Into
Darkness now). But the pacing is bizarre and the movie begins Bay’s problem
of his films being bloated and overstuffed. This movie is 2 and a half hours
long and while I’d normally be okay with that, it doesn’t do a single damned
thing with it. There is literally nothing here that couldn’t be done in an hour
and 45 minutes, and the movie feels slow and boring.

And then there’s the acting. Everyone always rags on
Affleck, and not without reason (he’s…pretty awful in this) but I was surprised
at how checked out Willis seemed to be. In fact, most of the cast is completely
out or just regular awful (with the exception of Steve Buscemi, who’s character
is a loathsome horrible human being on paper, but that Steve Manages to make
work). And then there’s the complete lack of logic, supposedly to the point where
NASA uses it in their training programs to have people spot mistakes. And then
there’s the way it seems to think that drilling is a harder skill to pick up
than being a fucking astronaut. And then there’s…

Fuck it, I don’t have space. There’s nothing good in this
movie, let’s just put it that way. From the terrible screenplay, to the awful
editing to the camera that just will not stop moving, it is all of Michael
Bay’s worst instincts put into a single movie, and it would probably be the
worst movie of his career if not for something that’s coming up later. But for
some completely baffling reason, it was a massive hit, especially by the
standards of 1998. As a result, Michael Bay had a ton of clout in the industry,
to make the movies he wanted to make.

Lucky us.

Pearl Harbor

A lot of people point to this as Michael Bay’s worst film,
because it’s shitting all over a real event where real people died, unlike the
others which are at worst shitting all over nostalgic 80s cartoons designed to
sell toys. I don’t disagree with that sentiment, and you’ll certainly never
hear me say that this film is anything other than ridiculously terrible, so I
can sympathize with it. The reason I can’t entirely get behind the idea that Pearl Harbor is his worst movie is because
on a technical and screenwriting level, it’s nowhere near as bad as…some
others. As I said, it’s an abysmal film, but stripped of the import of its
subject, it’s pretty much just boring.

This is actually one of the two big question marks in the
middle of Michael Bay’s career, as it seems more than a little out of place
with the rest of his films (the other one is a little bit more of a question
mark, but we’ll get to that later). It has very little of his trademarks and
styles, other than his ‘America: Fuck Yeah!’ attitude, so I don’t know what
drew him to the project. The production details on this are a little sparse so
I can’t say anything with certainty, but I would not be at all surprised to
find out the script was originally a much more faithful telling of the attack,
which got edited into oblivion after Titanic
hit, and people decided that romance flavored history was in.

Aside from Michael Bay’s weirdly flat and lifeless
direction, which suggests a level of detachment that I don’t usually see from
him, the big failing is on the screenplay and acting. Ben Affleck’s twin awful
turns in this and Armageddon began an
nearly decade long series of bad decisions (with the exception of Dogma) which wouldn’t turn itself around
until Hollywoodland in 2006. Kate
Beckinsale is not a very good actress to begin with, but she is good at certain
things and romance is not one of them. And Hartnett…I’m sorry, he’s just kind
of a shitty actor.

What’s weird to me about this movie is how few of the pieces
fit together. The From Here to Eternity
takeoff doesn’t really fit with the war aspect, the portrayal of the attack
really doesn’t fit with how the rest of the movie portrays combat, and even
parts of the attack don’t fit with each other; The sequence where whatshisname steps
outside and starts firing his shotgun at the planes is bordering on hysterical
in how stupid it is, and the Ben and Josh piloting sequence is realllllllly at
odds with the attempted drama of the rest of the attack.

While the movie was a big hit, it wasn’t as big as Armageddon and while critical revulsion
was again nearly universal, it was this time joined by audience distaste for
the portrayal of the actual event. Bay, brought low but by no means humbled,
was to return to the well for a sequel for his next movie. And we’ll discuss
that, and the movies which came after, next time.